ARTICLES ABOUT SMOKE AND WATER DAMAGE BY DATE - PAGE 3

Investigators said Saturday they may not be able to determine what sparked the four-alarm blaze that devastated the Upper Bucks Senior Center and paralyzed downtown Quakertown a day earlier. "They may never really have a definitive cause because there's too much destruction to the building," said Scott McElree, the borough's manager and police chief. McElree said officials believe the fire started in the one-story building's roof. They do not suspect arson. Dozens of elderly people who had been playing pinochle in the senior center at 26 N. Fourth St. were forced to evacuate after the fire started about 3 p.m. Friday, but none was injured.

BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP A fire Tuesday afternoon at 3935 Devonshire Drive in Bethlehem Township destroyed the garage and the home's attic and left the rest of the house unlivable, a fire official said. Deputy Fire Chief Rick Hasonich of the Bethlehem Township Volunteer Fire Company said the first call went out at 2:20 p.m., crews arrived 10 minutes later and had the fire under control by 2:57 p.m. He said the house has smoke and water damage but is uninhabitable because part of the electrical system was destroyed.

ALLENTOWN A Tuesday afternoon fire caused several thousand dollars in damage to an Allentown couple's home but was extinguished before anyone was hurt, a city fire official said. Firefighters were called to the blaze about 4:35 p.m. at 225 E. Federal St., said Fire Marshal Ken Bratsch. He said smoke detectors in the home alerted a woman to the flames and she called for help. Workers contained the fire to a second-floor bedroom, but extinguishing the blaze caused smoke and water damage to other areas of the house, Bratsch said.

ALLENTOWN Allentown firefighters quickly doused a two-alarm blaze Thursday afternoon at a home in the West End. The smoky blaze at 36 N. 16th St. broke out just before noon and was contained within 45 minutes, said Assistant Fire Chief Daniel Sell. Witnesses said a man was in the house when the fire started, but got out safely. Sell said roofers had been working on the third floor before the fire started, but the cause of the fire is still under investigation. The second- and third-floor roofs had fire damage and much of the building had smoke and water damage, Sell said.

ALLENTOWN Hours after Allentown firefighters extinguished a blaze that gutted a three-story home on N. 10th Street, police and emergency vehicles were sent up the block, where a boy was stabbed in the neck, authorities said. Allentown police were called to N. 10th and Liberty streets about 2:50 p.m. and found a 15-year-old boy who was slashed around his neck, Lt. Daryl Hendricks said. The boy was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest with non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

ALLENTOWN A second-floor fire displaced two people from their apartments in a city building Wednesday afternoon, a fire official said. The second-floor tenant was not home when the blaze broke out about 3:30 p.m. at 214 S. 13th St. but a neighbor below was, said Capt. John Christopher of the Allentown Fire Department. No one was injured. Firefighters contained the flames in a front room on the second floor of the building within about 15 minutes, but smoke and water damage caused both tenants to be displaced, Christopher said.

PERKASIE Investigators have not yet determined what caused a fire that damaged a duplex at W. Callowhill and Sixth streets in Perkasie this week. No one was hurt in the fire, but residents in four apartments -- each side of the building has two apartments -- were temporarily displaced, according to Thomas Krutsch, a Bucks County assistant fire marshal. Krutsch said the fire started in the kitchen of an upstairs apartment at 532 W. Callowhill St. early Wednesday. That apartment was badly damaged.

WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP A kitchen fire displaced a Whitehall family of five from their home Tuesday afternoon, a fire official said. No one was injured. The blaze started about 2:40 p.m. at the home of Michael and Cathina Spear of 425 Sixth St., said township Fire Chief Robert Benner. He said the couple was at home with one of their three children when the fire began. Two other children were at school, Benner said. He said the Spears forgot something was cooking on the stove, which caught fire, spread to cupboards and then to the ceiling.

ALLENTOWN A 5-year-old boy playing with a lighter accidentally started a fire Wednesday that displaced nine people from a row house on N. Sixth Street, fire officials said. The boy and his 4-year-old brother were playing in a bedroom closet at 2:39 p.m. when the 5-year-old accidentally ignited a mattress in their second-floor apartment at 421 N. Sixth St., fire Capt. Robert Scheirer said. Fire and smoke filled the home. The two boys, their 7-year-old brother and their mother, Jasmine Blas, were inside, but managed to get out, Scheirer said.

ALLENTOWN A fire displaced two adults and six children from their rowhome Wednesday night. The family accepted the assistance from the American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley, said resident Wanda Robinson. Robinson, of 1103 Liberty St., Allentown, said her family escaped the fire unharmed. About 8 p.m., Robinson said she and her six children were on the porch when she went inside for a moment and smelled smoke. The smoke made it impossible to reach the third floor to find out where the fire started, so the family left the house and she called 911, Robinson said.